Hierophany

Friedman Benda is pleased to present, Hierophany, Designer Ini Archibong’s first solo gallery exhibition. Hierophany marks the culmination of an ongoing four-year collaboration with the gallery and the first time this comprehensive body of work by Archibong will be on public view. Combining his lifelong interests in global cultures, mathematics, philosophy, mythology and world religions with a passion for his own Nigerian ancestry, Archibong views each object as a reflection of his life experiences.

Hierophany demonstrates the dualities inherent to Archibong’s practice: past and future, personal and collective, opacity and transparency, opposition and reconciliation, local and global, intangible and physical. For Archibong, the coexistence of these oppositional forces is in itself “hierophanous.” Through his philosophical approach to design, Archibong’s practice is rooted in the expression of spirituality and as a result every design is a physicalization of an unseen force and energy. Communicating through light, color, sound and form to reinterpret traditional archetypes for the 21st century, his works are intended to invite participation and provoke a multisensorial experience from the user. Serving as an entry point for further exploration, Archibong states, “my goal with each piece is to exalt a single universal and spiritually powerful concept, which can stand as a microcosmic example of the entirety of the universe’s spiritual essence.”